Did I Mention . . . ?

That I finished my first draft of the second book? :) Oops. I finished it about three days ago. I'm working on a heavy edit right now.:)

Ciao!

Almost Time for some Nudging.

Okay, so my partial DID in fact arrive in Denver yesterday morning. (I love delivery confirmation:)) and I am hoping that I will get put at the top of the list since my partial was technically requested almost 2.5 months ago. But, if not, that's okay too, because Kristin's new assistant has really been helping her stay on top of her workload. (This is her, by the way, second picture down; hi Sara! :) )

Joe's exclusive expires on Wednesday and I am trying really hard not to develop the habit of biting my nails. (sigh)

A couple of people have a little nudge in order. I already nudged Scott, and he's just way busy, but he has my partial and will get back to me at some point. (shrug)

But Nephele is due for a nudge in ten days and Mary Beth in twelve. Shawna says her reading time is running 6-8 weeks and it has been 5 for her, so she is off the hook for another 3-4 weeks . . . 3-4 weeks (sigh.) I think the worst part of the whole agent search is the inherant waiting. As Inigo Montoyez says in The Princess Bride, "Wait, wait. I hate to wait." And of course, "I don't suppose there any way you could-a speed things up?"

(Sigh)

Ciao!

The Writers vs. Barbara Bauer

The writers are up in arms! Absolute Write (which you'll find on my links bar) has been shut down based on false accusations with bogus authority by Barbara Bauer of the Barbara Bauer Literary Agency. Barbara is a known scam-artist and she is ticked at Absolute Write because she got put on their list of the Top Twenty Worst Literary Agents. She is scum. But she thinks she can salvage her reputation by cutting off Absolute Write. See the complete story here from Teresa Nielsen Hayden. (Hi Teresa!!:)) Well, the writers are taking a stand. So I'm tyaking a stand too.:) Here is the List of the Top Twenty Worst Literary agents as compiled by all the staff at Absolute Write with special thanks to Ann C. Crispin and Victoria Strauss.


* The Abacus Group Literary Agency
* Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
* Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
* Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
* Benedict & Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
* Sherwood Broome, Inc.
* Desert Rose Literary Agency
* Arthur Fleming Associates
* Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
* Brock Gannon Literary Agency
* Harris Literary Agency
* The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children's Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency)
Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
* Martin-McLean Literary Associates
* Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
* B.K. Nelson, Inc.
* The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
* Michele Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency and Simply Nonfiction)
* Southeast Literary Agency
* Mark Sullivan Associates
* West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

Also, please feel free to check out this website by Denice Kincy with other blogs about this issue. I especially liked what Miss Snark had to say (and I stole her formatting for the top 20 list.)

Ciao!

Oh, Man!!

(sigh) Okay, this is a little discouraging. I emailed Kristin and her assistant went through the partials and confirmed that they did NOT receive my partial. (grumble) So now I have to print it off and send it again (this time I'll get delivery confirmation) and then, you guessed it; wait. I am hoping that Sara (her assistant) will put me on some kind of a short list and my partial will get a read sooner rather than later. I mean, that's only fair, right? But if not, she seems to have been really staying on top of the partials (Sara told me they are done with everything up to May 6th; that's a really good turn-around time.) So hopefully that won't be too long of a wait.

In the meantime I have completed 81,000 words in Cymbals and am feeling excited about the scene I am on. (When you get to the end of a long novel, it can be hard to keep your motivation up.) But my sibling-in-laws are out of school starting this Thursday so hopefully I can squeeze a little bit of extra babysitting out of them so I can finish my first draft in the next week to ten days.:) My big goal is to have the first draft and one good edit done before I leave for Utah on the tenth of June. (crosses fingers) It's a big goal, but I'm working on it.:)

Ciao!

The Golden Triangle.

First off, isn't she beautiful? This is Nellie.:) She was born on Monday after a fabulous effort from her mother.

I have pictures of Alejandro too, but they are still on my camera. I'll try to get them up later.

Well, my day yesterday . . . sorry, but it sucked! It started out with a fight with my husband and, likely because of that, my writing was stifled and it was like pulling teeth just to get it on the screen. (I took a look at it this morning and did a lot of fixing. The scene I wrote is decent now.) So I was in a rotten mood already when I went out to check the mail. Waiting for me were three rejections. Three rejections in one day is bad enough, but I also had a very nice variety. One on a query, one on a partial, and one on a full (a full I really didn't expect to hear back on at all.) So I didn't feel like blogging yesterday and got up this morning still feeling pretty low. However, I did jet off an e-mail to Kristin who, since I still haven't hear back from her on my partial, I suspect is the first victim of the postal system. I don't think it got to her. It's been way too long since I sent it. That means I will probably have to print off a new packet and send it off again. That means the whole waiting period starts all over again. (sigh)

So I really don't have any good news to share, but for what it's worth, Kate and Shana are off the list. Onward and upward.

Ciao!

Three Babies!!

Wow! What a last couple of days! At 1:00 in the morning one of my client's water broke. That was the beginning of two very long days. She had her baby at 12:45 that afternoon. About half an hour later I checked my voicemail and found out that another clients was being induced at 4:30 that afternoon. So after about an hour I left Client #1 to go take Client #2 to the hospital. Well, as I was driving to Client #2, Client #3 calls and says that she is being induced at 7:30 the next morning--at the same hospital as Client #2. Long story short, Client #2 and Client #3 had their babies less than four hours apart and I called in my back-up doula and did some room hopping. Three births in tow days. Whew! I was so tired last night! But they all did great and they all had beautiful babies.:) I'll post pictures of the babies tomorrow. (I can't post pics of the moms because of confidentiality, etc. But I can post pics of the babies and that's the cutest part anyway.)

Well, I have concluded that my partial did not reach Kristin because it has been a weeks since she said she got to all the partials through April third except a few so wait a week. She is at a big writers convention this week and won't even be back in Denver until Monday. So on Monday, if I still haven't heard anything (and at this point I'm assuming I won't) I will jet her an e-mail and see what's up. It's really frustrating to me. I kept expecting and expecting to hear from her and . . . well, it's frustrating.

On the up side, The Chain and the Sword has been in New York with Joe for one week! Yea! Someone (the assistant, I imagine) has probably read it. If they liked it, Joe will read it next. Assuming that does happen, he will probably read it this week.

Other than that, there is no news yet. But I am now two days behind on The Cymbals and the Crown, so today I have to get cracking on that again.

Ciao!

Bite Me.

Very happy today.:) I got one of Stephenie Meyer's new Edward Cullen Fanclub T-shirts. Yea! You gotta check these things out. There are some advantages to knowing the author personally.:) If you are a Twilight or Edward Cullen fan you can get one of your own (if you hurry!). Stephenie said they are going on sale tomorrow, so I assume there will be some information up on her website. By the way these images are from her website and are not my property.:)

No book news today as it is neither a business day nor a mail day, but I got a new shirt.:)

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

Ciao!

70 K!!!!

I hit 70,000 words on my sequel last night! And about three thousand of those words were a scene that ends up being really pivotal in the story that was very hazy in my mind and suddenly snapped clear yesterday. I typed like a mad woman! (The scene is about a mad woman. Haha) My goal was to reach 70,000 words this weekend. I guess I'll have to try for 75,000 this weekend instead.:) I gotta get this thing finished so I can pass it around for critiques from my family while I am up in their neck of the woods in four weeks. I think I can do it, but I need to get back to writing every day. I think two hours a day for the next three weeks (generally spread out through the day because of my kids;)) should do it.
I have this pipe dream of having one of the agents call me up say, "I love the book; there's a sequel, right?"
And then I can say, "Of course; I just finished it."
At which point they, of coure, go into a frenzy, shouting, "Send it! Send it! I must find out what happens!!"
Hey, back off, I said it was a pipe dream. (laugh) But seriously, with the way that Chain ends it is very clear that it needs a sequel and I would hope that any agent interested enough to offer representation would also want to know what happens next.
I expect Cymbals to be about as long as Chain, which means my first draft will probably be 100,000 words and will grow about 5,000-10,000 words during the editing process. I already know places I want to go back and expand, but I can't go back in the middle of a book or I'll never finish. Keep the eye on the prize, girl, eye on the prize.

Ciao!!

Would You Just Go Already!

Okay, since I have absolutely no news to report on the writing front, this entry is about my doula business. I have a client who has been having prodromal labor for a number of weeks and finally last night she turned a corner and seems to be in true pre-labor. So after a good night's sleep she's going to be doing a bunch of walking today as well as using some homeopathic labor aides. I wish she would just go into labor! She's such a cute thing and she's been miserable for almost three weeks having mild contractions every 5-10 minutes for, seriously, three weeks solid. I've been expecting her to tip over the edge and go into labor since about April 25th. (sigh)

So Scott has had my partial for 10 weeks. He said he would respond in eight weeks, but I didn't want to write at the exact eight-week mark and be like, "Hey, what's up?" because I don't want to come across as being too impatient. But I'm getting impatient! I think a follow-up e-mail is in order. So, BTW, in case you are interested, these are the people who currently have pieces of my book.

Kristin

Scott

Kate

Joe

Nephele

Mary Beth

Shawna

Shana

I have several outstanding queries, some of which I have high hopes for. So I'll let you know as I add and subtract from this list.

Ciao!!

**Update** I e-mailed Scott and he offered his apologies for being late, but that he has been very busy. But he did check and he does have my submission and said he would get to it soon.:)

Yes!!

My book arrived in New York yesterday morning. :)My three week exclusive to JV, has begun. I also was visiting K.N.'s blog and she mentioned that she had responded to all partials up to about April 3rd, and I was like, hey! My partial got there no later than March 20th! But the next sentence says that if you have not recieved a response yet to wait a week because she "still need[s] to evaluate a few before the response letters go out." I think that's good; don't you think that's good? It means I've made some kind of cut . . . doesn't it? I know it's not a lost mail thing because she responds by e-mail, not by SASE, and her e-mails have always gotten through just fine. I have really high hopes for K.N.; I always have, I'm not sure why. She is actively looking for a good fantasy novel to open her sales in that area and I have one that is not long-winded and epic. Llike (cough, cough) Robert (cough) Jordan. It is very reader friendly --particularly non-hardcore-fantasy readers. I just think that the two of us would be a really good match. Since I've said that I'll probably get a rejection in my inbox today but hey, it true so I'm saying it.:) Don't get me wrong, I certainly wouldn't turn Joe down, but I think Kristin and I would be good together. What do I know?

Ciao!

This Blog Does Have a Purpose.

Random Thought: I Like Broccoli. I admit it; I do. I also like lima beans, brussel sprouts, and most legumes. I like vegetables in general. I'm one of the few people I know who does.

So the main purpose of this blog is to follow my progress as I attempt to publish my first book. I have a website for my childbirth business, so this blog is specifically focused on my publishing journey. So here goes.:)

It all started Sept. 11th (sorry for the significance of the date, but it's true) 2005, when I woke up--before my infant son which almost never happens--from an amazingly vivid dream that was fading even as I tried to grasp onto it. I went out to my kitchen to jot a few sentences down about it because the idea seemed so compelling. Thirty minutes later I got up from the table with three pages of notes, a chapter outline, and a basic character sketch for the three main characters. It wasn't hardly anything like the dream I had (all of the physical elements changed) but the basic idea was there and was growing like zuccini in my mind. (If you haven't grown zuccini, it totally grows out of control with just a small bit of nurturing from you.)
It started out very small. It was supposed to be one book and all of the names and places, etc. that I had were very simplistic and skeletal. As I started writing I realized that my story had matured into something that deserved better. So I changed a lot of the phraseology and turned my city names into real cities. About this point my characters took over, telling me what they were going to do instead of the other way around. (Ever lost an argument to a character who is a figment of your imagination? It's very disconcerting.)
My 15 year-old brother in law was my first reader and from the first segment that I printed out for him, he loved it! As I approached 80,000 words and realized I was less than halfway done with the story I had a very hard choice to make: one book or two? After weeks (seriously, weeks!) I decided for sure to split it into two and the ending for the first book came so naturally to me that I am so glad that is what I decided to do. (Not to mention two shorter books are way more saleable than one long one.)
I have a wonderful, fabulous, beautiful friend name Stephenie Meyer, who is a very talented writer who schooled me in the basics of publishing and strongly recommended that I try to get an agent. (She also put my manuscript on her agent's desk, but the agent has not even gotten around to reading it. Whatever!:)) But based on her advice, that's what I started doing. For anyone who wants to get an agent, I really very, very heavily on agentquery.com for relieable info. I have to date sent out 106 queries and currently have partials out to 7 agents and the full manuscript out on exclusive to one.
Meanwhile, the sequel (The Cymbals and the Crown) has just passed 63,000 words and is still going strong.:) It is an exhilarating and devastating process. An acceptance makes my day, and rejections, while not depressing, are really discouraging when they start to add up. I've had about 75 so far. But I am trudgind on. Onward and Upward!

Ciao!

Hey World! I have a Blog!

Guess What? I have a Blog!! Now I'm really cool. Okay, maybe it just makes me a bigger nerd than I already was . . . but hey, I have a blog. And it's pretty.:)

So I guess next comes the customary introduction. I am Aprilynne and I have a husband and two kids. We live in Phoenix for the moment.

I am 24 and I like to read, write, draw, sing, play the piano, run, and play with my kids. I am a doula and childbirth educator and love doing that. I am also halfway through my second book entitled The Cymbals and the Crown the sequel to The Chain and the Sword which I am working on getting published right now. It is currently in the hands of a fabulous agent who will let me know what he thinks of it within three weeks. (fingers, toes, and eyes crossed.)

More Later! Ciao!